WWE Smackdown vs. Raw – Review

The WWE is definitely a love it or hate it kind of thang, there ain’t no middle ground. Me?? I love it… BIG time, it cracks me up so much, the moves that some of the guys and girls pull off is impressive to say the least, the “story” lines are funny as hell. It’s great entertainment… but is this game great entertainment?? Or is it as good as Eugene is clever?

Well first off there are lots of choices. What type of match: King of the ring, Last man standing, First blood, Royal rumble, Ladder match, Cage, Hell in the cell, and the (in)famous Bra and panties match, to name a few!!! Then there’s the choice of superstar, there are a good amount to choose from at the start, plus there are Legends to unlock. Plus you can create a wrestler using the very in depth create-a-wrestler feature, with which you can make some really amazing freaks. Then you choose the arena, again you can unlock more arenas as you go. Then it’s whether your gonna have managers or not. And this is just the exhibition match choice!! If you choose career mode, then you’ll pick one wrestler from the list (or your created freak), and go for gold.. But one of the problems with the career mode is that it’s only (very)slightly different whether you pick Smackdown or Raw. The story stays the same, only the wrestlers change!!

One thing that does change if you pick Raw or Smackdown (apart from the menu), is the commentary team. So for Raw you get JR and the King, and for Smackdown you get Tazz and Michael Cole. And to start with the commentary is pretty good, with Jerry the King Lawler wanting puppies (female gamers cringe!!) when the divas are in action, and Tazz giving Cole a hard time. But after a while you start hearing the same things….again and again and again!!!! But with a bit of work it’ll be good, at least if they can get it as good as Fifa or Pro evo standards.
Anyhoo back to the career mode.

Another thing that could do with sorting out is the fact that you can’t pick who to team with, or have a grudge against, or which match to interfere with. It’s a shame, but i think that if the makers listen to the people buying the game and act on what they want, things can only get better for the game overall.

Controls for the game are pretty easy to start with, X to strike your opponent, triangle to run, and the 0 button to start a grapple move, after that you can push the d-pad in a direction + 0 to do a different grapple move. And you also have counter moves, these are done using the shoulder buttons, and if used well can make you pretty hard to beat (i know this from the counter using ninjas online!!!!)

The fight dirty or fair idea is really good, and works well. Do you want the crowd on your side by being ‘nice’ and using flash moves, or do you want to win “whatever it takes”??? What you choose, and how you play will affect the outcome of the match by filling your dirty/clean tactic gauge throughout the match. And when the gauge is full you can unleash a special good/bad move. This is sort of like the finishing move. During the match you’ll build up the ‘special’ gauge. And when you fill it you can do (if your in the right position) a super special FINISHING move!!!!!! These moves can win you a match, so you wanna use ‘em at the right time, like when you’ve been laying the smacketh down on some jabronie and they are near the brink of defeat….unleash a finisher and it’s “game over” Of course you could just whack ‘em on the bonce with a chair, or sledgehammer!! But only if your in a no holds barred or no disqualification match….or you get your manager to throw a weapon in the ring, and then get the referees attention, giving you enough time to wallop your opponent. Best time it right though, if your seen by the ref you will be outta there!!!

Graphics wise the games a winner. The crowds look great, the rings look great, and the arenas look great. And the wrestlers look really great, just like the real life versions. This includes the way they move, from there entrance to there signature moves. And the facial animation is good as well. If you smack someone on the head with a chair, there face will contort in pain, just like real life. And it’s
cool the way it goes into slow-mo blur camera when you pull off a finishing move.

Sound is good, apart from the annoying rawk music!!! But thankfully you can turn it off (Xbox HDD and your own music = genius). The commentary is ok-ish, the crowd whoop and holla (holla holla playa). But the voice overs other than the commentary is patchy at best…. It seems as if some of them either phoned in there ‘effort’, or just couldn’t be bothered (step forward Eric Bischoff !) which is a shame because it takes away from the game.

Gameplay is fair to middle’in in the single player game. But in multi player it gets much better. You can’t blame the cheaty computer when your playing against another human, and i think this is where this game comes into it’s own. Either using a multi-tap, or going online, you’ll have a better game against other people. And the online aspect of the game is pretty good. There’s a fair few people online, and you can pick between if your rubbish (me), or really good(everyone else). So you don’t, and shouldn’t get, put with people who are miles ahead of you. If there’s anyone who want’s a game, all i can say is, if you want
some……..come get some!!!!

Female aspect of the game…. well there are ladies in the game…but…they’re ALL good looking well endowed young things (not too pc!!)… but you can use them to kick blokes about all over the place. Essentially this is the WWE, so sexism abounds.

Overall i give this game 3.5 outta 5.
But if your gonna be playing online, or with mates a lot, you can add .5 to that.

Review by Roy